Comprehensive Evaluation and Obstacle Factor Analysis of High-Quality Development of Rural E-Commerce in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Reading the literature review, the authors cannot present the uniqueness of the study.
Write the hypotheses at the end of the introduction section to guide the entire manuscript.
In the literature review section, discuss with the international literature. There is the type of shift toward quality that many economies have experienced. The authors must not miss this trend comparing many case studies of various countries.
The literature review fails in organizing the information to persuade the readers to understand why the concepts and methods are the most valid to study the main theme of this study. Reorganization to guide the readers better is necessary.
Line 86 Who are the scholars? Cite them. The same applies to the entire manuscript.
Research method and result sections do scarcely cite the literature. Cite the material from which you get an idea from. Please check the standards to cite the literature for the purpose. They are much stricter.
Research methods needs to mention and cite the formal names of the data if they are secondary.
Lies 213 to 214: Explain more about the sentence. If they are quoted, they need the citations.
Separate the result and analysis sections. The separation clarifies the discussion better. Especially, the discussion needs to focus on the interpretation in relation to past studies.
The result is not organized to be understandable. How about organizing the section by several low-level hypotheses?
Line 357. What do you mean by industrial correlation here? Also, the use of semicolons in this sentence is wrong. Please reorganize the sentence here. Check English errors through the draft.
The result and conclusion sections need a few sentences at the beginning of paragraph to tell how each of it goes. The authors seem to write the content without guiding readers.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
It is an interesting work that shows the state of the art in China in relation to its ecommerces.
Although the research is well done some changes are needed:
- Add research questions
- Formulate hypotheses
- In discussion or conclusions give answers to hypotheses and research questions.
- The paper has few references in the E-commerce part and needs to be better connected.
Thanks for the reseach
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Comments：
From the perspective of research, this paper is innovative in terms of research perspective and the research topic is in line with the current research hotspots, which makes it a relatively novel research paper. However, the research is only conducted at the national level in China, and is unable to explore internal heterogeneity. The methodology is relatively simple, the indicator system is scientifically weak, and overall, the study is not problem-oriented, academically innovative and normative enough. For these reasons, I suggest this paper is rejected.
1、Line 20 in the summary, “The main obstacles to the high-quality development of rural e-commerce in China are coordination and innovation.” incorrectly stated. How can coordination and innovation be demonstrated academically and theoretically to exhibit a barrier effect on the quality development of e-commerce? Illustrating from data alone can lead to inadequate scientific findings due to biased selection of indicators.
2、“the difference in Internet penetration between urban and rural areas, the upward proportion of agricultural products, regional difference and industrial agglomeration are the main obstacles to the high-quality development of rural e-commerce in China” Is industrial agglomeration a major obstacle to quality e-commerce development in rural China? Does the logic not make sense and is the dispersed industrial layout conducive to quality e-commerce development?
3、The introduction section does not give an account of the innovations in this paper.
4、In “Literature Review” section，The first half of the book is heavily stacked with literature, the second half is heavily referenced to government documents, and there is a lack of cohesion in academic opinion.
5、In “Index System” section，the choice of indicators is not academically sound and the relationship between primary and secondary indicators is not strong，such as “Production of Green Agricultural Products” ,“Annual application amount of agricultural chemical fertilizer”, a lower fertiliser application does not mean a higher degree of green agricultural production. This is because the size of the arable land and the structure of the crops have to be taken into account. “Innovative Development” , “R & D expenditure of e-commerce related industries /Total R & D expenditure of information service industry” and “R & D personnel in e-commerce related industries /Total R & D personnel in information” How to distinguish between rural and urban e-commerce innovations? In Open Development, Is the selection of indicators all export-related and does the selection of indicators not take into account the flow of goods between regions within countries?
6、The unit of study was chosen at the national level, with too many regional differences to allow for a detailed analysis of the spatial and temporal evolution of rural e-commerce and thus identify the bottlenecks in its development. The research methodology is too simple and the reliability of the data is questionable.
7、The format of the references is not standardized.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for the possibility of reading your work. There are some significant problems which I would like to highlight in this review.
First is the title. The proposed title consists of the method "Obstacle Factor Analysis" - I am confused because the method is not described. You have used a different method. This title part makes me think it is related to a particular method.
Second, in your paper, references are mainly related to the Chinese authors. Are you sure there are no European authors whose work you can cite? Please consider broadening your topic to interest readers from outside of China.
Third, It is hard to understand the goal of the paper. The reader should be guided by hand through the whole text. What is the research gap you are trying to cover or what is the problem you are trying to solve?
In the introduction section, there is no clear goal of the paper presented, there is no motivation explained to conduct such a study. There should also be presented novelty and scientific contribution. Adding an overview of the paper's content would also be beneficial.
A literature review is also very poor. Why do you not cite government documents in the references if you have used government documents?
I am afraid that the theoretical background does not support your empirical research.
Finally, the text's references and format have to be improved.
Please look at the conclusion section and present the theoretical and empirical implications of your study. Please address the future promising research avenues in your paper.
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Please return the lines numbered in the manuscript with the response with line-by-line explanation of revision.
What is taobao?
The following needs the citations. Explain more in a concrete way.
"At the same time, scholars' exploration of high-quality development of rural e-commerce is still limited to continuous optimization on the basis of the original shortcomings, and the specific connotation and direction of high-quality development of rural e-commerce are not clear."
Because the literature review section does not critically compare the studies of high-quality development of rural e-commerce, the following is not attained. Make a table or figure to compare the connotation and indicator dimensions of past studies and show the gap in a clear and persuasive way.
"The main contributions of this paper are as follows: First of all, the connotation of
high-quality development of rural e-commerce is clearly defined according to the relevant literature of high-quality development of rural e-commerce and the relevant literature of high-quality development"
Again, the following does not mention what merit is involved with the selections of methods and dimensions about development quality. The literature review just listed these, and it does not logically tell why these are selected. Why are they worthy of being studied?
"this paper will build a high-quality development indicator system of rural
e-commerce based on the new development concept, and select the entropy method to measure the development quality of rural e-commerce in China."
The following is not the explanation to calculate rural portion.
"The full-time equivalent of R & D personnel in e-commerce related industries to the total R & D personnel in information service industry reflects the investment
of R & D personnel in rural e-commerce industry."
Write a separate discussion section. Because this is a complex paper, this will enhance the clarity. The interpretation is consistent with past studies. Are there any new findings to emphasize?
Correct typos through the manuscript. There are capital letters in the middle of many sentences and sentences without subjects.
Add more citations if the authors introduce materials and ideas taken from others.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
No problem.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
Thank you for introducing the changes to the article. However, they should be in the review mode to track them better.
Author Response
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Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
I spot plagiarisms. I will not support the manuscript with this submission.
The text contains many sentence fragments and run-on sentences. The manuscript demands precise editing.
Do not use an inequality sign inside the sentences.
Line 175 "At the same time" does not make sense as a transitional phrase here.
Table 1 needs to be organized by a research article. Do not just copy the text. Do not show more than an article in each row.
Line 213 What are the related industries?
Lines 645 to 658. Detailed citations are required.
Lines 689 to 783 The sentences are too banal. I even detected certain sentences almost the same as the sentences on the web. This is regarded as a plagiarism; for example, I find the three hits by Google search for the phrase "it is necessary to scientifically interpret" in Line 766. The content has been written consistently, and the section demands detailed citations.
Author Response
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